1014: Pain

Pain

Varian felt a scream for help. It was a woman's voice. Certainly not Sia's or Sarah's or anyone he knew. It was weak and her words were incoherent. It's as if she was speaking while trying to drink water. No, he knew that type of speech. When blood rushed from the throat and you still tried to speak, then it'd sound exactly like that.1

'Who?!' Varian tried to shout.

But the darkness around him remained silent, as it had been since he fainted. He couldn't see or touch anything. Everything was dark and void. Somehow, he was still 'awake'.

Varian thought he fainted from the injuries inflicted by Demon King and waited for his body to do the job.

Even though healing the wounds caused by a Sovereign was hard. The major difficulty was expelling the Demon King's strong chi from his body.

Back in the ruins when Julius attacked Enigma, no matter how many healing potions he used, she didn't heal back. He had to take out the destructive aura in her. He really struggled during that time but now, he didn't even feel any doubt on whether his body could expel the chi.

'Thirty minutes and I should be awake.' Varian started counting the numbers to not feel weirded by this darkness.

But the time limit he set had passed and he still couldn't feel his body. Even after another thirty minutes, nothing seemed to change.

'What the hell? I am pretty sure my time count is right.' After gaining the time power, he had an almost intuitive grip on the time flow. Even if he's not awake, he knew at least an hour passed.

Varian tried to feel his body again and after several attempts, he found out that it's already healed.

The problem came from his…soul?

It was as if the connection between his body and soul was stretched taut, preventing him from waking up.

'Soul.' There wasn't anything he had done to result in this, right?

As he replayed the recent events, Varian's mind locked onto one. 'Synergy!'

Synergy was supposed to be a slow and cautious technique. It improved strength of the participants in every session but he can't just continue it on forever.

If that were the case, why would he even bother to train, he could just synergize his way to the top.

While it's a wonderful technique with great benefits, it's strict in how it should be performed.

The number one rule was proper care.

But when he was carried to the ghost ship, he was on the verge of fainting. Left with no choice, Varian grabbed their hands and started it abruptly. And once he got a boost in strength, he ended it abruptly.

Even as he discovered the secrets of the origin, he was in a hurry about Evander's situation. The moment his strength felt enough, he rushed out.

If they were more accomplished in this technique, the backlash wouldn't be this hard. But they're still in the beginner stages.

Varian paid the price for his actions by staying conscious without control of his body.

After an another hour, Varian felt his body senses return. He couldn't even open his eyes and stand but his nose already picked up the thick bloody scent in the air and his superhuman hearing captured the painfuls creams.

'Help! My baby! My baby is not dead!' A hysterical woman's screams.

'Mother! It hurts! It hurts!' A little boy's cries.

'It's alright! We're almost there! We'll be fine, just a minute, we're almost—' A man's heartbeat stopping as a woman breathed her last.

One by one, the noises in the city, the cries, the screams, the requests, the curses, all made their way into his mind.

As he had his eyes closed, the effect was amplified and Varian felt as if he was thrust in the middle of a crowd with everyone whispering to him.

'Please! Please…save him.'  He heard the pleas of an old woman as tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed the ground under her knees.

'If there is anyone watching us, I beg you, let my sister be safe. She's only…ten. Take my life instead.' He heard the sounds of a young man banging his head into the floor along with the sound of blood gushing.

Varian's eyes remained closed and he still had no control over his body. But the corner of his eyes grew wet.

He was growing more and more regal thanks to his increasing power and responsibility. But at this moment, all he wanted was to console those dead and save as many as he could.

He didn't really bother to think much after hearing those wails. All he knew was that a large number of people were under pain.

If needed, Varian vowed to be more ruthless than anyone else. But hearing this screams, he once again felt a heavy burden on his shoulders.

One day not so far in the future, he'd be taking decisions that'd lead to deaths. Millions of deaths. He already led to a lot of deaths on Mars. But it'd seen like child play for what's to come. As humanity grows bigger, the scale of deaths would only magnify.

But for now, Varian just wanted to help. Even if he couldn't do much, as long as he saved one more life and stopped one more cry.

If he was calmer, Varian would've been thinking about the root cause of this tragedy. But now, his emotions were influencing him.

And if all the cries made him feel pain, some voices that popped up made his blood boil.

"Die! Die you Zion's incarnates!" The sound of a heavy axe splitting an old man into two.

"You're the reason so many of our kin died!" A lightning bolt electrocuting a little girl.

"If only you didn't resist, we'd have prevented so many deaths!" The sound of a sword hacking a corpse a dozen times.

"You don't deserve to live!" The deep voice of an abyssal as he crushed the head of a young man who tried to fight back.

Varian felt his vision go white before he gasped and woke up. "Haaa!"

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